The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    HDD Upgrade Question

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by ctasich, Mar 6, 2009.

  1. ctasich

    ctasich Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    16
    I am looking to upgrade my hdd for my Asus m50vm-b1. Currently, I have the stock 320gb 5400rpm hdd. I was going to upgrade to a 7200rpm hdd, but I had a few questions.

    1) Has anyone noticed significant performance increases after upgrading on a similar scale?

    2) How is battery life affected?

    3) Is the notebook only able to communicate with hdd at SATA 1.5 levels?

    4) Does anyone have any good recommendations for hdd's?

    Comp Specs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220343&Tpk=m50vm

    Thanks,
    Chris
     
    ctasich, Mar 6, 2009
    #1
  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

    Reputations:
    4,412
    Messages:
    8,077
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    205
    The ASUS G50, has two harddrive caddies. One can hold a drive up to 15mm thick, and the other can hold a standard 9.5mm drive. That being said, you can install two 9.5mm thick drives. Your system suports all 2.5" SATA harddrives, both SATA 150 and SATA 300. Most of the new harddrives are very power efficient, so the difference in battery life is going to be very minimal. I would say nominally about 5minutes max, maybe close to 12-15 minutes different with two drives installed.

    Are you looking for capacity or speed?

    If capacity is your goal, with relatively high transfer speeds I suggest getting one or two Hitachi 5K500.B's or two WD5000BEVT drives. Both are 500gb 5400rpm. The hitachi is harder to find, so I suggest getting the WD.

    If Speed is your main goal, you can either get one or two 320GB 7200rpm drives or a 500gb 7200rpm drive for your system.

    Your system supports RAID 0, which would optimize performance, making performance increase by about 10% on disc accessing. You need two identical drives to do this.
    I would get two Hitachi 7K320's an put them in RAID 0. They can be bought at zipzoomfly for around $60 after rebate.
    If you want the most speed, go for the 500gb 7200rpm seagate 7200.4. However please note that Seagate has been undergoing lots of problems across the boards with their harddrive firmware, so you should probably stay away from them. That being said, your options should be the Hitachi 7K320/WD3200BEKT and the WD5000BEVT

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Mar 6, 2009
    #2
  3. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    4,982
    Messages:
    34,001
    Likes Received:
    1,415
    Trophy Points:
    581
    I haven't had single problem with my 500GB 7200.4.
     
    ZaZ, Mar 6, 2009
    #3